Strangers on a Train
A brush with the ugly reality of migrant politics in Italy
Hey everyone,
Today’s column is going to be a little different than my usual beat. As I mentioned in this post last week, I recently spent two weeks in northern Italy and it was a whirlwind of delicious wine and food, gorgeous architecture, and alpine mountain vistas. However, the experience wasn’t universally wonderful… On one of our last days, riding a train from Switzerland back to Italy we witnessed first hand an ugly side of Europe with their treatment of migrants. I generally avoid discussing politics on this Substack and I know immigration is a complicated issue that stirs up strong emotions. While this article may alienate some readers, I can’t stay silent.
About halfway through the 90-minute trip from Lugano to Milan, we woke from our nap to hear the ticket collector angrily grilling two teen boys in the aisle. They were unaccompanied minors, probably 14 or 15, with dark hair and light brown skin. They carried large backpacks and wore tattered clothes. I’m not sure where they were from, but they did not seem to speak Italian or English. At one point I heard the inspector try a few words of French, but they stayed mute in the corner with downcast eyes as he became increasingly irritated.
“DOCUMENTS? WHERE ARE YOUR DOCUMENTS?!” he yelled in English. The ticket collector told them he would call the polizei if they did not comply with his requests. I’m not sure they understood a word he said.
Part of me had an urge to speak up to de-escalate the situation and calm down this random train employee who was clearly going off on a power trip. But as a foreigner in this country myself, and one who doesn’t speak Italian to boot, any such intervention seemed unlikely to help the situation, and might possibly get us in trouble with the police ourselves.
At the next stop, the one-sided argument peaked and he told them he was going to kick them off the train, and that they should be grateful for that instead of being arrested. We watched the two pre-teens slink off onto a platform 30 minutes outside of Milan in the middle of nowhere. It was around 9 pm, dark, and chilly.
The ticket collector then walked over to a few locals behind us and they all started joking in Italian. He grabbed a newspaper and paced around reading headlines and articles out loud, occasionally jabbing a finger for emphasis, to more laughter. Since I don’t speak Italian I’m not sure if all of this was related to the kids they threw off the train, but reading the non-verbal cues and body language, it certainly seemed to be.
Make no mistake: Those two boys were singled out precisely because they looked and sounded different. No employees had asked for our passports, train tickets, or other documents. Nor was anyone else on the train checked. I can barely order an espresso in Italian, but because I’m white and dress like a yuppie I got a pass as “not a threat,” and probably European (or at least a tourist with money).
When we arrived at Centrale Milano, we quietly disembarked and walked back to our hotel in shock. This brief incident had punctured our romanticized view of Italy.
Sadly, this is not unique to Italy—I see similar strains of anti-immigrant sentiment rearing their head around the world, especially in my own country. In some parts of the US, scenes like that one on the train are already a regular occurrence.
Coincidentally, right before that incident happened I was scrolling the news on my phone. I came across this article in the New York Times:
“Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up reading passages like these:
“Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis.
He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year. To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings.
[…] U.S. consular officials abroad will be directed to expand ideological screening of visa applicants to block people the Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes. People who were granted temporary protected status because they are from certain countries deemed unsafe, allowing them to lawfully live and work in the United States, would have that status revoked. Similarly, numerous people who have been allowed to live in the country temporarily for humanitarian reasons would also lose that status and be kicked out, including tens of thousands of the Afghans who were evacuated amid the 2021 Taliban takeover and allowed to enter the United States.
[…] And Mr. Trump would try to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents — by proclaiming that policy to be the new position of the government and by ordering agencies to cease issuing citizenship-affirming documents like Social Security cards and passports to them.”
Let me state the obvious: This is all horrible.
To be clear, I’m not arguing for so-called “open borders,” or that a country does not have a right to set its own immigration policy. But those policies above (and there’s far more detail in the full NYT article) are draconian, malicious, and in many cases frankly unconstitutional. They are based on xenophobia, Islamophobia and bigotry writ large.
While Donald Trump is the lightning rod for this agenda, it wouldn’t be possible unless millions of Americans agreed with those ideas and plans. We should not be surprised that this ugliness extends beyond government policy; the US saw saw a huge spike in hate crimes during the Trump administration, particularly directed at Asian, Hispanic, and Muslim people.
What in the world does any of this have to do with science, technology, or veterinary medicine?
Plenty!
During summer breaks in college, I labored on dairy farms alongside Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants (all of them undocumented) in the 100 degree heat to get large animal experience for my vet school application. Many of the DVM/MS/PhD students and residents I’ve worked with in universities across the country come here on temporary student visas and face steep employment challenges when they graduate. My vet school research mentor was a Brazilian immigrant who just recently became a full US citizen. The CEO of my former start-up Lacuna Diagnostics was Nepali immigrant Bikul Koirala (who I previously interviewed on this Substack). Whether or not you realize it, immigrants (both documented and undocumented) are involved in every aspect of your daily life from the food you buy at the grocery store to your care team in the hospital.
Furthermore, many of my Substack readers hail from all over the world, with a significant number currently in graduate training in the US or hoping to move here in the future for educational and/or work opportunities. Dozens of readers were likely referred by the Nigerian pharmacy PhD student Abasifreke Benson who runs
I am tremendously proud and humbled to be read by such a diverse audience:
The ironic thing is that people who support these extreme immigration restrictions in my home country claim that they want to “Make America Great Again.”
You know what actually makes America great?
Welcoming people from all over the world.
Helping those in need.
Fighting injustice.
Immigrants are a quintessential part of the fabric of this country. Indeed, the original American colonists in the 1600-1700s were fleeing religious oppression in Europe. Waves of German, Italian, and Irish immigrants, including my own ancestors, came to this country in the 19th and 20th centuries seeking a better life. Immigrants have figuratively—and often literally—built this country. We are richer and stronger because of them.
Don’t believe me? Consider the following:
40% of US Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, medicine, and physics since 2000 were immigrants. Since the Prize began in 1901, this figure is 36%1
Foreign-born US military service members enlist at a disproportionately high rate relative to their population size and make up 20% of Medal of Honor recipients2
Immigrants start almost a third of small business in the US, and are twice as likely to open a business as native-born US citizens3
Is the US perfect? Absolutely NOT. There are many problems here, and we frequently do not live up to our lofty ideals. Yet, the spirit of America is one of perpetually aspiring to be that “shining city on a hall” (just ask Ronald Reagan).
In closing, I am very worried about the rising tide of authoritarianism and anti-immigrant sentiment across the globe. I don’t have a comprehensive immigration policy prescription for the US, or anywhere else, but I know that I recoil from throwing teens off trains, separating families, building walls, conducting raids. From hateful rhetoric that only divides rather than brings us closer together.
While I am not a terribly religious person, I think that heavily Christian nations like Italy and the United States need to do some soul-searching and heed the words of the Bible that they claim to live by:
Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” — Matthew 25: 34-40 (NIV)
I sincerely hope someday soon the fever of intolerance sweeping the world breaks. This holiday season I urge us all to remember that immigrants are people, and even when they run afoul of the law, we absolutely must treat them with dignity and respect. Finally, going into 2024, people need to realize how high the stakes are in our elections and vote accordingly…
— Eric
Note: I debated whether or not to keep comments open for this post given the potentially sensitive subject. I am going to err on the side of free speech and allow discussion, but I will quickly remove anything resembling discrimination, hate speech, or trolling!
“Immigrant Nobel Prize Winners Continue To Impress”. Forbes, 10/5/23.
“How Immigrants Give Back to the U.S. as Soldiers and Veterans”. The Immigrant Learning Center, 4/13/23.
“Immigrants Create American Jobs”. New American Economy.
Thank you so much, Dr. Fish. You summed it up perfectly. I'm sad that writing an essay on being compassionate and treating others as we would like to be treated feels like opening a can of worms. I really hope we as a nation (and as a world) can re-learn kindness.
Wishing you and your readers a safe, snuggly, and joyful Thanksgiving.
Well, here is your first comment: thank you for writing this, and sharing the story of the migrant teens (or pre-teens) on the train in Italy.
I fail to understand why so many people fear and despise those they consider to be “other.” How they don’t see those who are different as equally human and deserving of dignity and respect, and how about kindness?
I also don’t understand the fear that immigrants are “stealing” resources from host countries, and the complete failure to understand that there is enough for all of us. As long as we live with a scarcity mentality, we will always fear having what is “ours” taken by someone else. This way of thinking makes us selfish, defensive and possessive.
Like you, I fear the rising tide of authoritarianism and anti-immigration sentiment. I have a hard time believing that Trump’s proposed immigration policies resonate with ANYONE but a minority. Apparently I think people are more influenced by the “better angels” of their nature than they actually are, because he is certainly resonating with a good sized chunk of the American populace.
My maternal grandmother and her parents were immigrants from Croatia (then known as Yugoslavia) and came to this country around 1910. My great grandfather opened a restaurant - as you mentioned, one of many immigrants to start a new business in a new country - and my great grandmother worked in a laundry. Neither of them ever learned much English, and when my grandmother started school in Bisbee, AZ, where the family settled, she couldn’t speak a single word of English - but she learned quickly.
When she was 17 she married my grandfather, a Native American of Cherokee ancestry.
Is there any one of us in this country who can’t trace our ancestry back to those who are from other countries? I don’t think so.
Why we are so inhospitable to immigrants now, in 2023, is something I just cannot comprehend.